


You Scratch My Back

by arsenicgodhead



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: High School AU, M/M, TW: Implied Illicit Activities, TW: Neglectful Parenting, TW: Panic Attacks, TW: Tiger Parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 09:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7097872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arsenicgodhead/pseuds/arsenicgodhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A high school AU wherein hard-working straight A student Nico di Angelo struggles with his Spanish class and easy-going A and B student Leo Valdez wants to strike a deal with the native Italian-speaker.</p><p>Warning: Rating may change. T-Rated for now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

            Incoming sophomore Nico di Angelo stood in the admissions and records office of Long Island High School and stared at the paper containing his grades from his summer courses. _Why didn’t I just pretend to **not** know Italian?_ He thought to himself, knowing full well that the teachers at this school had known that he and Bianca had spent the first few years of their lives in Venice, and that English was very obviously the childrens’ second language. But by the time he’d gotten to high school Nico had been fluent in both Italian _and_ English, and the school required him to take a language that he _didn’t_ know.

            “Um, excuse me?”

            Nico flushed out all sound as the panic began to set in. He had already been working so hard in all of his other classes, and another year struggling through Spanish _really_ didn’t appeal to him. It just wasn’t fair! He’d taken a few classes over the summer in hopes of getting into the advanced class and finishing the course by end of junior year, which would also give him a few more credits towards an early graduation. He’d passed his math and history classes with flying colors, and got bumped up to the higher level group in both. But he should have heeded to his guidance councilor’s advice on only taking two classes over the summer; the heavy summer-semester course load had been too much to bare, and he was stuck at the intermediate level of Spanish unless he could prove that he deserved to be in the advanced class in the spring semester.

            “Hoy, Nico! I’m talking to you!”

            _What?_ Nico spun around as a hand grabbed his shoulder, surprised that someone was actually trying to get _his_ attention. He had assumed earlier that this person was looking for someone else, as was usually the case. If a voice didn’t belong to one of his sisters, Nico usually tended to block it out. He didn’t really _have_ friends, and he didn’t really _want_ any. He was too sleep-deprived from all of his studying and extra-curriculars. He figured that if he _really_ wanted friends, he could make some when he got to college.

            A solid minute had passed and Nico finally realized that he hadn’t answered the curly-haired suspender-wearing boy holding his shoulder. He quickly shrugged the boy’s hand off and took a step back.

            “I don’t like touching.”

            The boy held up his arms apologetically. “Sorry,” he said, “but you weren’t answering me. I thought maybe you couldn’t-“

            “What do you want? I’m very busy.” Nico glared at the boy through his incredibly heavy eyelids. God, he needed a good night’s rest. Yet another thing that could wait until college.

            “Huh? Oh, right. My name’s Leo Valdez. I’m friends with your sister.”

            “I know your name. You’re in Hazel’s Italian class. You hang out with her and Bianca and Frank and all of their other friends all the time. I’m not asking who you _are_. I’m asking what you _want_.”

            “Right, um-“ Leo scratched his head and took a quick look around the office. School would be starting next week, and the office was packed with teachers. Leo felt uncomfortable making the offer that he was about to make in front of so many faculty members.

            “Why don’t I drive you home?” He offered. It would give him a chance to make his offer away from prying eyes and ears. What he was about to do was – unethical. And certainly not something a _good_ student would accept. But from what Leo had heard, Nico was really breaking his head over this Spanish class.

            “No thanks.” Said Nico. “I’ve got a ride. Frank and Hazel-“

            “Are on their way to a movie because I _kiiiiiiiiiiiiind_ of told them that you had already accepted a ride from me.”

            Nico’s glare burned into Leo’s soul. Leo wasn’t exactly _overjoyed_ about the offer he was about to make – as much as he loved Hazel and Bianca, their little brother gave him the creeps. The kid was always studying, or staring off into space, or was too busy doing _something_ or other. The only people he would talk to that _weren’t_ related to him were Frank and Annabeth. On rare occasions he'd talk to Percy, but the kid would never look Percy in the eyes and always found a reason to leave as soon as Percy entered the room. Leo couldn’t figure out what Percy had done to earn himself the scorn of Nico di Angelo, but he figured it must have been something trivial – he couldn’t imagine that it took too much to set the kid off.

            “So, ah, are you cool to ride with me? Or would you rather walk home? Because it’s kind of far…”

            Nico let out an exasperated sigh and adjusted his backpack. “Fine, yes. Thank you. Let's go.”

            Leo smiled. It wasn’t a smug, winner’s smile; but instead a happy, genuine smile, that seemed to just radiate the word “ _great!”_ Nico sighed again and walked out of the crowded office, Leo following him step-for-step, eventually taking the lead. Leo talked a lot and Nico tuned it out; partly due to exhaustion, partly due to not giving a fuck about Leo’s life. After six minutes of absolute hell, the two of them got to Leo’s car.

            Leo’s car was the tackiest piece of shit Nico had ever seen. The damn thing was painted _gold_ , and the seats were covered in red leather. The vanity plate was incredibly unoriginal – it said _Valdez01_ , which was quite possibly a reference to the year that the car had been made. The absolute _worst_ part of it was the hood ornament: instead of a jaguar or a mustang or _anything_ predictable, this absolute tool had found a fucking _dragon_.

            Leo’s face lit up when he caught Nico admiring the hood ornament. “¿Te gusta? I call him Festus. My dad helped me make him.”

            Nico looked at him, confused, for a few seconds. His head was still groggy from the all-nighter he had pulled worrying about the status of his Spanish grade.

            “Sorry, what was that?”

            “My dad. He’s a metalworker. He helped me make the hood ornament. My mom and me put together the rest of the car; she’s the coolest, she can build pretty much anything!”

            “No, not that. I mean, that’s impressive. Really cool and all. But that first thing that you said, before all that. I didn’t catch that.”

            “ _¿Te gusta?_ You like? Sorry, sometimes I forget not everyone speaks Spanish. Speaking of which…”

            Nico’s brain froze. His grogginess once again gave way to panic as he thought of his unsatisfactory grade in his summer Spanish course. His dad had _paid_ for him to take that class, and it wasn’t very cheap. He’d _begged_ his dad to let him take summer classes, and his dad had begrudgingly accepted, on the condition that he made sure that it wasn’t a waste of money. _Crap. Crap crap crap._ He’d have to tell his dad that he was stuck in the level of the class that he would’ve been in anyways, and then he’d be yelled at, grounded, embarrassed in front of his sisters, _and_ made to feel like he was the most worthless human being on the entire planet, because _how dare_ he make his father spend money on his education?

            “Hey? Are you listening?”

            Nico blinked a few times and tried to slow his breathing. He hadn’t even realized that he’d been breathing so hard. _Fuck. How long have I been doing that?_ He shook his head a few times and shifted in his seat. _When did we get in the car?_ He looked around and noticed that they had already left the parking lot, but hadn’t gotten far before Nico’s panic started setting in. Leo had pulled over and snapped him out of it before it turned into a full-fledged panic attack. Nico, still breathing heavily, looked through his bag and found his old inhaler. It was completely empty, and he’d only ever needed one for his allergies, but it was a lot easier to write off his panic attacks as asthma than to explain them to everyone who bothered to ask about them. He took a quick puff from the inhaler and placed it back in his bag. Doing this always helped to slow his breathing and calm him down.

            “Sorry" he said, embarrassed and looking down at his backpack.

            “You feeling better?” Leo’s tone conveyed genuine concern for the sophomore.

            “Yes. What were you saying?”

            “Yeah, we should get a little further away from school before I go into any more detail. What I’m about to ask you isn’t exactly in accordance with school rules. I don’t think it’s actually legal, y’know. Are you hungry? You good with McDonald’s?”

            That caught Nico’s attention. _Holy fuck,_ Nico thought, _what does he mean by "not legal"?_

            “S-sure.” Nico stammered, trying really hard to keep his breathing rate normal.

            “Hey, look at that! A positive response!” Leo smiled again in that happy-not-smug way. The look made Nico uneasy; he didn’t really know much about Leo other than the fact that he was friends with Hazel and Frank. Sure, they had good judgment – he liked _most_ of their friends, and he didn’t think that the two of them had ever even _thought_ of breaking a rule. But if Leo wanted to ask Nico for something illegal, while the two of them were out of ear-shot… Nico’s panic started welling up again, and he forced himself to breathe slower as the two of them drove in silence to McDonald’s.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leo makes his offer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So remember how I said not to expect the next chapter any time soon and how the time that I said that was yesterday? Surprise! New chapter!

“You wanna do drive-through or walk-in?”

“Walk-in, I guess.”

Nico could tell that Leo had put a lot of hard work into this car, and would probably prefer to eat in the restaurant than to risk getting ketchup on the seats. The parking lot was mostly empty, and the only people there were sitting inside.

“You cool with sitting outside?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.” The heat didn’t really bother Nico. He usually felt cold, even on days as hot as this one. But there was a nice breeze, and the table was in the shade.

“Great! I’ll go get our food. You save our table. What do you wanna eat?” Leo smiled at Nico again – Nico was either disgusted or attracted to that dumb, happy smile. He hadn’t yet decided which.

Nico gave him his order and Leo left Nico alone at the table. Leo still hadn’t gone into detail about the “illegal” favor that he wanted to ask Nico for. Nico’s curious mind started twisting the idea around, making predictions about the nature of Leo’s offer. Nico vaguely remembered something about Spanish. Had Hazel told Leo about his anxiety over the class? Leo was fluent in Spanish, and could be offering to tutor him. But why couldn’t he make that offer in front of Hazel and Frank? And what was so illegal about tutoring? Did he want something in _exchange_ for Spanish lessons? Nico’s mind started to wander to weird places, and he shook off the thoughts before they had the chance to get… strange. _Dear lord. No. Not now. I need sleep._

“Ta-da!” Leo plopped the tray down on the table and sat down across from Nico. He smiled again – _God, this guy is always smiling_ – and handed Nico a soda and fries. Leo took a bite from his own burger and offered Nico a bite.

“What did you want to ask me about?” Nico had grown impatient. He wanted to know what was so damn illegal that Leo couldn’t talk about it parked next to school.

“Right, um. So. You know how I’m fluent in Spanish?” Leo’s big, genuine grin was replaced by an embarrassed smile. His face started flushing a little, and his brow started to glisten. Whatever he was going to ask for, it was something big.

“Yes. What about it?”

“Well, Hazel asked me to offer to tutor you in Spanish.”

_That’s it?_ Nico thought, _what’s so illegal about tutoring?_

“In return, she’d tutor _me_ in Italian. She’s a lot better at it than I am. But I thought about it and now I’m thinking: What if we take it one step further?”

_That sounds more like it_. This is probably the part that had made Leo so nervous he couldn’t be in the proximity of teachers before saying the words out loud.

“So like, who’d be a better Italian tutor than someone who’s _fluent_ in Italian, right? So at first I thought, _maybe Bianca_ , because I know her a bit better than I know you. But then Hazel asked me this and now-“

“And now you want to exchange Spanish lessons for Italian lessons? Hardly anything illegal about that.” Nico was a bit disappointed.

“Well, yes, but then _another_ thought occurred to me. And this is where that whole ‘ _one step further_ ’ thing comes in.”

Nico took a long sip from his soda, set it down, and leaned forward. “I’m listening.”

“So like, you _want_ straight A’s right? And I want to not have to take Italian again next summer. So why don’t we do each other’s homework? I bet I could get you bumped up to the advanced class by the end of the semester.”

Nico couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This was a free pass to an easy A, something he had never even _considered_ in his entire life. He’d always worked hard for his grades, and the thought of performing _academic dishonesty_? It could absolutely _ruin_ him.

But then again, English had been _so_ difficult for him to learn. Learning Spanish should have been a piece of cake, especially since he didn’t have to take all of his _other_ classes in Spanish. It had just been so damn _hard_ to keep all of the verbs and tenses and conjugations in his head.

“Let’s say that this _isn’t_ an idiotic idea that could get us both expelled,” Nico said, “how are we going to pass our tests? If we’re not doing our own homework, we’re not going to learn the languages and someone’s going to figure out that there’s a reason that we’re getting perfect scores on our homework and Cs on our tests.”

“You get Cs? Damn. I’m getting Ds on homework _and_ tests. How’d you manage Cs?” Nico’s impatient and annoyed glare was all it took to shut Leo up. “Right, not important right now. Sorry. Anyways, that’s why we’re gonna be smart about this – we actually _are_ going to tutor each other. We’ll spend two hours a day three days a week actually sitting together and teaching each other our respective languages. We’ll just do each other’s homework so that we both get good grades in our classes. That way, we can both focus on test prep and fluency instead of writing about, like, holidays in the Vatican or whatever.”

Nico seriously considered it. On the one hand, there was the risk of being caught. He could get suspended, or worse, expelled, and it would _definitely_ hurt his chances of going to a good college. On the other hand, Leo’s plan _did_ make sense; Nico already knew a lot about Spanish history and culture. That was the part of the class that he didn’t have any trouble with. He _liked_ learning about those things, and Google translate had made it infinitely easier to learn about _that_ part of the curriculum. So Nico had no doubt that this plan would work, so long as they didn’t get _caught_.

“So, whaddya think?” Leo smiled expectantly at Nico.

Nico took a long sip from his drink. As he did, he went over all of the responses he could give to Leo. _No_ and _Hell no_ and _Hell fucking no_ all came to mind; that would be the safe way out. He’d continue getting a C in Spanish, but would never risk getting caught. But the thought of getting an A in the class was incredibly tempting; after all, it wasn’t like he was going to slack off entirely. He’d still be learning the language, he’d just be getting a little extra help with his assignments while doing so.

And more importantly, getting an A meant that he could finish the class early, and maybe even _graduate_ by the end of junior year.

“I think we should do it.”

Leo’s big, goofy, genuine grin came back. “What?”

“I said I think we should do it. But _no one_ can ever find out. Not even Frank and Hazel.”

Leo’s smile had somehow gotten bigger. “You really want to do it?”

Nico paused and looked down at his soda, clearly thinking the concept over once more. Leo’s smile dropped a little after a minute in silence. _Shit_ , thought Leo, _why did I say that?_ He’d had this wrapped up and good to go. Like an A+ with a ribbon tied around it, neatly delivered to his front door. _Shit shit shit_. What if Nico got cold feet now that he had had more time to consider? It was a risky move, and from what he’d heard about Mr. di Angelo, the dude was a total hardass whenever he bothered to be in town. _Of course_ Nico was reconsidering, college was his one shot at getting away from his dad, and this could ruin his chances. There was no way he’d throw away his otherwise perfect record for, what? An A rather than a C in Spanish? The chance to graduate a year earlier than he would have? _Shit_.

“Yes,” Nico said, breaking the three straight minutes of panicked silence that Leo had just endured and returning the smile on Leo’s face to full effect. “Yes. I really want to do this.”

“Sweet! When are you free for tutoring? I’m free pretty much-“

“None of this is illegal.” Nico interrupted.

Leo blinked. “What?”

“In the car, remember? You said that you didn’t think what you were going to ask me was actually legal. None of this is illegal, it’s just academically dishonest.” Nico folded his arms and cocked an eyebrow.

“It’s not? My bad.” Leo shrugged. He hadn’t realized the extent of Nico’s anxiety, or the toll that the prospect of his “illicit” offer had taken on the poor 15 year-old.

“You done eating?”

Nico looked down at his plate. He usually didn’t finish his food, but the anticipation of Leo’s offer had caused him to stress-eat until all of his fries were gone. His soda was entirely drained as well.

“Yes.” Nico picked up his empty food wrappers and walked over to the garbage bin.

“Cool.” Leo said, following behind him with his own garbage for the bin. “Do you have to go home straight away? You wanna hang out? Maybe see a movie?”

“No.”

“No you don’t wanna hang out? Pretty rude, man.” Leo said jocularly, that cutely genuine smile once again spreading across his cheeks.

Nico’s face flushed. “No, I mean, no I don’t have time to hang out. I have to go home. My dad’s leaving tonight and wants to-“

_Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck_ Nico thought. His dad had been expecting to hear about his grades. He’d have to tell his dad that he didn’t get a good enough grade to be moved up to advanced Spanish this semester. Tears threatened to well up in his eyes as he pictured his dad yelling at him about the waste of money he’d created. His throat tightened as the feeling of absolute worthlessness deepened like a pit in his stomach. He started to hyperventilate again.

“Nico?”

Leo grabbed the sophomore’s shoulders as the kid’s breathing started to pick up. He started blinking really fast, and hot tears were streaming down his cheeks. _Fuck!_ Leo thought. _What’s going on with him?_ He didn’t know what was happening. Was he having an asthma attack? It certainly didn’t seem like one. Leo had _seen_ asthma attacks before; the victim should sound like they legitimately couldn’t breathe, and Nico sounded more like he was winded than suffocating.

“Nico, look at me if you can hear me.” He didn’t. That was another thing. Someone with an asthma attack remained aware of their surroundings during the first few seconds of the attack, and Nico would probably be groping around for his inhaler. From what Leo could tell, this seemed more like a panic attack, and figured that maybe the kid was covering up his anxiety by pretending that he had asthma. Nico seemed like the kind of person who would do something like that: making people think he had a medical condition rather than making them worry about his state of mind.

Having assessed the situation, Leo had to figure out how to fix it. He vaguely remembered reading that depriving the victim of a panic attack of air could stop the attack. _God, I hope I’m right and this doesn’t kill him_ , he thought. He decided to try reaching out to him one last time, just in case.

“Nico! ¡ _Mira mé¡ ¡Por favor!_ I mean- shit! Just; Nico!” Still no response. Nico’s breathing was getting heavier. It was now or never time.

Leo’s eyes moved to Nico’s nose and mouth. _Deprive him of air._ “I’m doing this to help you. Remember that.”

With one hand, he pinched Nico’s nose shut. He used the other to hold the boy’s mouth closed. Nico’s eyes went wide, and after a few seconds he jerked himself out of Leo’s grasp.

“ _Che cazzo_ Valdez?”

Leo smiled. Not his usual, genuine smile, but instead a smile of relief. “You’re okay. You _are_ okay now, right?”

Nico took a deep breath, then exhaled. “Yeah. Yeah I’m fine now. Thank you.”

“Good.” Leo said. “You wanna tell me what that was all about? And more importantly: if there’s any way I can help?”

Nico paused for a moment. He’d just agreed to perform a capital offense (at least, in terms of academic honesty) with this guy, but he didn’t know if he wanted to open up about his anxiety issues just yet. But Leo _did_ seem genuinely concerned, so Nico decided to give him the shortest and most bare-boned version of the situation.

“My dad. He’s-“

“No need to say anymore. No offense, but if half of what Hazel and Bianca have told me is true, your dad’s a huge douchenozzle.”

That made Nico smile, which in turn made Leo smile. He’d never seen the younger boy smile before. He decided right then and there that he liked Nico’s smile, and would have to keep track of the things that brought a grin to the younger boy’s face.

“So,” Leo continued, “What’s up?”

“It’s- um…” Nico needed a few minutes to collect his thoughts. If he tried to explain now, before carefully choosing his words to let Leo know the absolute _minimum_ amount of information, he’d go off on a rant about just how much of a _douchnozzle_ his dad is.

“I’ll explain in the car.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! I hope you enjoyed this chapter of "You Scratch My Back"! And now you know why it's called that! Now that I've gotten the basic concept of the rest of the fic published, I'm gonna map out the rest of the story and hopefully get chapter 3 up somewhat soon-ish. Also hopefully I can predict how many chapters this fic is gonna have. Stay tuned for more! And thanks so much for reading!
> 
> P.S: For those of you wondering, yes: the whole "oxygen depravation to stop a panic attack" thing IS a reference to Teen Wolf.


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